As is the case in many programming languages, symbols must be represented not with their literal, but with a substitution so as not to confuse the interpreter.  Redundant spaces, the '<' character, ampersands, etc must be specified when coding HTML using their symbol rather than the literal character.  If you are using an editor specifically designed for HTML (like Front Page which this site uses), you do not need to worry about this.  However, if you are coding in Notepad or any simple text editor, you must be aware of the need for symbols else your HTML will look wacky!

These symbol sets are officially referred to in HTML as character sets of which there are two types, character entities and numeric entities.  Character entities are mnemonics or abbreviations for character symbols as in < which represents the '<' (less than) sign.  Numeric entities are a numerical representation of the character which normally use the ASCII value of that character/number/symbol as in < which also represents the '<' less than sign using its ASCII value.

All characters in the ASCII table can be represented by a numeric entity.  Only some of those characters have a character entity equivalent.

Below are some examples of commonly used symbolic representations.  The full chart can be found in any HTML book or at: http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/demos/ent4_frame.html

 A registered trademark: 
 

&reg;

®

An ampersand: 
 

&amp;

&

This text  here

This text&nbsp; here

  extra (space)

This text     here

5 spaces in total required 4  

Middle dot, a custom bullet 
 

&#183;

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